The RC2 release of Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring (code name Estephe) is now available. This RC2 version provides some updates on major desktop components of the distribution, including KDE 4.2.2, GNOME 2.26, X.org server 1.6, and kernel 2.6.29. This RC2 version proposes also nearly all of the 2009 Spring design. This version will allow you also to dump in a very easy way All available One hybrid isos on a USB key and then install Mandriva Linux on netbooks.

I am still searching for the "right" distro for my Asus 1000HE. Under Windows it gets 8+ hours of battery life. So far I have tried Ubuntu NBR, EeeBuntu 2.0 and Moblin. I have also tried all kinds of kernel hacks (hpet), acpi stuff, EeeApplet, Eee Control, etc. The only distro so far that had given me a good battery life is Moblin, but it WAY too alpha for me. Any reports on battery life and Mandriva? Battery life and portability are the whole reason I bought a netbook. I hate giving up 2-3 hours of battery life just to run Linux.

Running KDE 4.2 should help to address this issue. KDE 4.2 made specific design provision for extending battery life on netbooks, notebooks and laptops.

I'm not sure that it would matter exactly what distribution it was that you used, though.

There are significant improvements in the kernel of late, so any distribution that ships with 2.6.28+ or preferably 2.6.29 will also improve battery life, and give you a welcome performance uplift as a bonus.

The only current distribution that implements KDE 4.2 right now that I know of is Arch Linux with KDEmod. The Chakra project is a LiveCD GUI installer that implements this, but the Chakra project itself is still in alpha. I am in the process of installing this on my ASUS EEEPC 1000H right now, but it is not for the skittish. The USB image of Chakra failed, so I have had to go via the bare-bones USB image of Arch 2009.02 and then manually install KDEmod. Not recommended ... but possible to do for those with patience enough.

Arch is, however, optimised for i686, and it does have a very slick version of KDE 4.2 in KDEmod. This can probably be considered as the performance leader, and it is quite viable to run it on a netbook.

Mandriva is generally a very good implementation of KDE. I will try this RC2 when I get a chance.

Kubuntu 9.04 beta is promising, but KDE is a bit of a second-class citizen for Ubuntu, so this distro lacks a bit of TLC. Nevertheless, it does work on a netbook.

Fedora 11 should be good ... but the hard disk installer of the recent RC LiveCD of Fedora failed, so I could only try it as a LiveCD, and therefore I can't comment on its relative performance. Since netbooks do not have CDs, I haven't as yet been able to run this on a netbook.

I personally don't like SuSe (mostly because of YAST and RPMs), so I haven't tried OpenSuSe 11.1, and so I have no comment on it.

Mint has a KDE 4.2 variation as a release candidate, but the kernel they are using is a bit older. It still might be worth looking at when they release it though.

Keep in mind though that OpenSuse, Fedora, Kubuntu, Mint and Mandriva which have KDE 4.2 are all still in pre-release stages.